Paul-Ehrlich-Institut: Sicherheitsbericht. Verdachtsfälle von Nebenwirkungen und Impfkomplikationen nach Impfung zum Schutz vor COVID-19 seit Beginn derImpfkampagne am 27.12.2020 bis zum 30.11.2021, Langen, December 23, 2021. The Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI), as the Federal Institute for Vaccines and Biomedicines, reports on suspected cases of adverse reactions or vaccine complications reported from Germany in temporal relation to vaccination with the mRNA vaccines Comirnaty (BioNTech Manufacturing GmbH) and Spikevax (MODERNA BIOTECH SPAIN, S.L.) and the vector vaccines Vaxzevria (AstraZeneca AB) and COVID-19 Vaccine Janssen for protection against COVID-19 from the start of the vaccination campaign on Dec. 27, 2020, to Nov. 30, 2021. […]
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238 posts
International Labour Organization (ed.): ILO Monitor: COVID-19 and the world of work. Eighth edition. Updated estimates and analysis (October 27, 2021). The report gives a global overview of how countries are grappling with the recovery, eighteen months into the crisis. Based on new data, it provides a detailed picture of the different recovery trends between developed and developing countries. It also analyzes the impact of vaccination rates on labour market by region, and the distortions the COVID-19 crisis is having on productivity and enterprises.
Pierre L. Siklos: Did the great influenza of 1918-1920 trigger a reversal of the first era of globalization?, CAMA (Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis) Working Paper 95/2021 (November 2021). The author revisits the 1918-20 pandemic and asks whether it led to a reversal in the rise of trade and financial globalization that preceded it. Using annual data for 17 countries for the 1870-1928 period, a variety of tests and techniques are used to draw some robust conclusions. Overall, the pandemic a century ago interrupted, but did not put an end, to the first globalization of the 20th century. However, two […]
Francesco Brusa and Paolo Do, Interview with Sergio Bologna: What remains of the 1970s tradition of ‘Medicina democratica’ in today’s protests against the Green Pass?, published in Italian in: DinamoPress (October 25, 2021). From Trump to anti-vaccinationists, today people caught up in neoliberal ideology claim the concept of ”freedom”. Do you see any contradictions in its widespread use? The contradictions one can run into when using the term ”freedom” is an issue that has preoccupied me since the late 1980s, when I began thinking about self-employment. Free and independent work, it was said, was far removed from the slavery […]
International Monetary Fund: World Economic Outlook Update. Rising Caseloads, A Disrupted Recovery, and Higher Inflation, January 2022. The World Economic Outlook is a report by the staff of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), usually published twice a year. It contains the IMF staff economists’ analyses of short- and medium-term developments in the world economy. The chapters provide both an overview and more detailed analysis of the world economy; they address issues affecting industrial countries, developing countries, and economies in transition to market economies; and they deal with topics of urgent current interest. Appendices, boxes, graphs, and an extensive statistical appendix […]
World Bank: Global Economic Prospects, January 2022. The global recovery is set to decelerate amid diminished policy support, continued COVID-19 flare-ups, and lingering supply bottlenecks. In contrast to that in advanced economies, output in emerging market and developing economies will remain markedly below pre-pandemic trends over the forecast horizon. The outlook is clouded by various downside risks, including new COVID-19 outbreaks, the possibility of de-anchored inflation expectations, and financial stress in a context of record-high debt levels. If some countries eventually require debt restructuring, this will be more difficult to achieve than in the past. Climate change may increase commodity […]
Karl Heinz Roth: Blinde Passagiere. Die Corona-Krise und ihre Folgen (Stowaways. The Corona Crisis and its Consequences), Munich: Kunstmann-Verlag 2022. An analysis of the Corona crisis that illuminates all facets – from the medical problems to the change in mentalities to the political and economic consequences. A book that brushes false certainties against the grain. In this excellently researched and elegantly written book, Karl Heinz Roth shows how deeply the global pandemic is affecting our societies and people’s everyday lives – a fundamental work for critically coming to terms with this crisis, and for avoiding future ones. For the past […]
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): Economic Outlook (December 1, 2021) Issue 2. The global recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic is uneven and becoming imbalanced. The OECD Economic Outlook, Volume 2021 Issue 2, highlights the continued benefits of vaccinations and strong policy support for the global economy, but also points to the risks and policy challenges arising from supply constraints and rising inflation pressures. This issue includes a general assessment of the macroeconomic situation, and a chapter summarising developments and providing projections for each individual country. Coverage is provided for all OECD members as well as for selected partner […]
International Monetary Fund: Fiscal Monitor. Strengthening the Credibility of Public Finances, October 2021. Multilateral monitoring of fiscal developments is an essential component of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Fiscal Monitor, which has been published twice a year since 2009, captures and analyzes, among other things, the latest fiscal developments and assesses policies to put public finances on a sustainable footing.
Manager Magazin: Biontech represents almost one-fifth of German economic growth (January 14, 2022). Without BionTech, German economic growth would have been significantly lower in 2021. According to an initial estimate by the Federal Statistical Office, the Mainz-based biotechnology company boosted growth by 0.5 percent, or nearly one-fifth, to a total of 2.7 percent. Sebastian Dullien, scientific director of the Kiel Institute for Macroeconomics and Business Cycle Research, speaks of a “clear biontech effect” in this context.
Jonas Herby, Lars Jonung, Steve H. Hanke: A Literature Review and Meta-Analysis of the Effects of Lockdowns on COVID-19 Mortality (Studies in Applied Economics, 200), Baltimore January 2022. This systematic review and meta-analysis are designed to determine whether there is empirical evidence to support the belief that “lockdowns” reduce COVID-19 mortality. Lockdowns are defined as the imposition of at least one compulsory, non-pharmaceutical intervention (NPI). NPIs are any government mandate that directly restrict peoples’ possibilities, such as policies that limit internal movement, close schools and businesses, and ban international travel. This study employed a systematic search and screening procedure in […]
Positions for a solidarity-based fight against the Covid-19 pandemic & its consequences A contribution by break isolation, Munich The deadly failure of capitalized health systems In April 2020 in the middle of the first Covid-19 wave, we published 12 concrete measures for a solidarity-based fight against the Sars-CoV-2 pandemic in the founding call of our initiative break isolation. At a demonstration in front of the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior on May 11, 2020, we loudly demanded that the government immediately implement these measures. Until today, most of the points of this catalog of measures have not been realized or […]
Annika Rössler, Lydia Riepler, David Bante, Dorothee von Laer, Janine Kimpel: SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.529 variant (Omicron) evades neutralization by sera from vaccinated and convalescent individuals (December 11, 2021) [Preprint]. Recently, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variant B.1.1.529 (Omicron) has been described. In this study, the authors analyzed titers of neutralizing antibodies of sera from convalescent or vaccinated individuals against the new B.1.1.529 variant and compared them with titers against other Variants of Concern (B.1.1.7, B.1.351, B.1617.2) using replication competent SARS-CoV-2 variants.
Ronen Arbel, Ariel Hammerman, Ruslan Sergienko, Michael Friger, Alon Peretz, Doron Netzer, Shlomit Yaron: BNT162b2 Vaccine Booster and Mortality Due to Covid-19, in: The New England Journal of Medicine 385 (December 23, 2021) 26, p. 2413-2420. Abstract Background The emergence of the B.1.617.2 (delta) variant of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 and the reduced effectiveness over time of the BNT162b2 vaccine (Pfizer–BioNTech) led to a resurgence of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) cases in populations that had been vaccinated early. On July 30, 2021, the Israeli Ministry of Health approved the use of a third dose of BNT162b2 (booster) to […]
Sandile Cele u. a.: SARS-CoV-2 Omicron has extensive but incomplete escape of Pfizer BNT162b2 elicited neutralization and requires ACE2 for infection, Dezember 17, 2021, online in: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.12.08.21267417. The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 Omicron, first identified in Botswana and South Africa, may compromise vaccine effectiveness and the ability of antibodies triggered by previous infection to protect against re-infection. Here the authors investigated whether Omicron escapes antibody neutralization in South Africans, either previously SARS-CoV-2 infected or uninfected, who were vaccinated with Pfizer BNT162b2. They also investigated if Omicron requires the ACE2 receptor to infect cells.
Daniel J. Sheward, Changil Kim, Roy A. Ehling, Alec Pankow, View ORCID ProfileXaquin Castro Dopico, Darren Martin, Sai Reddy, Joakim Dillner, Gunilla B. Karlsson Hedestam, Jan Albert, Ben Murrell: New Results. Variable loss of antibody potency against SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.529 (Omicron) [Preprint], December 20, 2021. The recently-emerged SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.529 variant (Omicron) is spreading rapidly in many countries, with a spike that is highly diverged from the pandemic founder, raising fears that it may evade neutralizing antibody responses. The authors cloned the Omicron spike from a diagnostic sample which allowed us to rapidly establish an Omicron pseudotyped virus neutralization assay, sharing initial […]
Businesswire.com: Pfizer and BioNTech Provide Update on Omicron, December 8, 2021. On December 8, 2021, Pfizer Inc. and BiontTEch SE announced the results of a laboratory study on their vaccines.
Alberto Diaz-Cayeros, Juan Espinosa-Balbuena, Saumitra Jha: Pandemic Spikes and Broken Spears: Indigenous Resilience after the Conquest of Mexico, August 9, 2021. It is well-established that the Conquest of the Americas by Europeans led to catastrophic declines in indigenous populations. However, less is known about the conditions under which indigenous communities were able to overcome the onslaught of disease and violence that they faced. Drawing upon a rich set of sources, including Aztec tribute rolls and early Conquest censuses, we develop a new disaggregated dataset on the pre-Conquest economic, epidemiological and political conditions both in 11,888 potential settlement locations in the […]
Nicole El Karoui, Kaouther Hadji, Sarah Kaakai: Simulating long-term impacts of mortality shocks: learning from the cholera pandemic, November 16, 2021. The aim of this paper is to study the long-term consequence on longevity of a mortality shock. The authors adopt an historical and modeling approach to study how the population evolution following a mortality shock such as the COVID-19 pandemic could impact future mortality rates.
Cured Quail: The reality of denial and the denial of reality, Antithesi / cognord, September 2021. This text was written and published in Greek in September 2021. It was intended as a polemical intervention in a debate about the Sars-CoV-2 virus, the measures and instruments to fight it, and the authoritarianism of the Greek government. It was triggered mainly by the authors’ astonishment (and sadness) that many of their comrades and friends from the radical milieu deny the pandemic, while some of them slowly but surely slip into conspiracy thinking and shocking absurdities. With the text, therefore, the authors wanted […]